Thursday, June 7, 2012

George Romero’s classic 1968 zombie film Night of the Living Dead begins with the famous warning that “they are coming to get you Barbra!” In the movie, the “they” were hordes of zombies, hungry for the flesh of the living and intent on destroying human society like a plague, an inexorable natural disaster, a tsunami of the undead.

Decades later, and perhaps inspired by Romero’s master work, the conservative media has conjured up a new terror: black young people are the “new” monsters, causing chaos and sowing destruction across the United States. Who is their prey? Innocent white folks that are being waylaid, murdered, and assaulted in an imagined race war by roving bands of black “zombies” whose barbarism is inspired by the election of Barack Obama.

Several weeks ago Bill O’Reilly, the most watched TV personality on Fox News, ran a series of stories on what he suggests is a “racially motivated” attack on two white journalists in Norfolk, Virginia that he claimed was covered up by the local press.

As Buzzfeed’s McKay Coppins details, the facts reveal a different reality: a rock was thrown at a car, the occupants had an argument with a group of men and a fight ensued. The reporters were not severely injured. Although an unfortunate incident in a city that is struggling with violent crime, it was neither particularly noteworthy or an anomaly. In fact, the newspaper for which the journalists worked thought the event was a non-story. This did not deter Bill O’Reilly. He could frame the story as part of a national race war by introducing one fact--the victims of the assault were white and the perpetrators were black.

The National Review’s Thomas Sowell legitimated this narrative of a race war against whites in a column which circulated widely throughout the Right-wing media and blogosphere. There he listed a series of such assaults in major cities such as Chicago, New York, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, which involved groups of young black people committing random assaults on pedestrians, robbing people of their cell phones and Ipods, and fighting on beaches and in malls.

These narratives of white victimhood at the hands of blacks have even gained traction internationally: the London based Daily Mail recently featured a story about a white man who was attacked by a black gang of “twenty hooded youths” outside of a pub.

Once more, instead of a story about random street crime in major cities (something all too frequent), white racial anxiety is used as the connective tissue tying these disparate and unrelated events together. As Sowell observes, "What the authorities and the media seem determined to suppress is that the hoodlum elements in many ghettos launch coordinated attacks on whites in public places.” Apparently, in the conservative imagination there is a nationwide plot and a scheme to silence white pain and anger as they are made the targets of systematic, brutal, anti-white racism.

The Conservative media’s race war narrative falls apart when one encounters the facts. In an effort to stir up white anxiety, these stories ignore that violent crime in the United States has been declining for decades. Oftentimes, these mob attacks are either random street crimes or actually a byproduct of long standing feuds between the participants and victims. And looking to context, most crime in the United States is intra-racial and committed by family members, friends, and associates. And one cannot generalize from aggregate crime statistics down to the probability that a given person will commit a criminal act.

Nevertheless, the conservative media keeps up the drumbeat of alleged black on white crime.

While these fears were born in slavery and Emancipation as a means to justify white terrorism against people of color, there are many noteworthy examples in the near past as well.

Up through the first half of the 20th century, The New York Times featured many news items about “giant negroes” who would attack police, any innocent white people nearby, and have to be brought down by overwhelming police violence. In an eerie foreshadowing of the conservative media at present, The New York Times archive also contains stories with headlines such as the following: “Mobs of Blacks Retaliate for Riots”; “Negro Mob Terrorizing the Citizens of Jacksonville”; “Negro Mob in South Shouts for Lynching”; and “Negro Mob Killed Sheriff.”

Stories about black mob behavior were also common during the 1960s. And of course, American popular culture during the Reagan era featured a recurring motif of white vigilantes such as Charles Bronson and Dirty Harry who protected “normal” white society from black gang violence and “wilding” teens.

The conservative media’s pandering to fears of black violence is a sophisticated effort. The race war must be brought home to predominantly white areas. Places like Iowa and Wisconsin do not have large populations of black people; but in the conservative media, this is no protection from the race war apparently being waged against white Americans. The Daily Caller and other conservative websites repeatedly featured coverage of what was labeled as “beat whitey night” a state fair in Iowa. The conservative media doubled down on their “white folks imperiled even in Red State rural America” meme by giving extensive coverage to how white people were ambushed and beaten at a similar event in Wisconsin.

All of these news items are part of an effort to craft a dramatic, exaggerated story that plays on racial fears, and channels many of the themes common to Right-wing identity politics in the aftermath of the Civil Rights era. Crime; black violence; a fear of black young people; and an emphasis on cities and urban areas (and the people who live there) as embodying everything wrong with America, have mobilized Republican voters and right leaning Independents since (at least) Richard Nixon’s appeals to “the silent majority.”

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Tesler’s body of research suggests that instead of delivering what many suggested would be a post-racial presidency, Obama will have polarized corners of American politics previously untouched by race.

Not only have racial considerations affected whether voters will support Obama, but they are beginning to renovate the entire architecture of public opinion...

A respondent’s views on discrimination (on a spectrum of “very common” to “very rare”) was three times more influential on his support for Sotomayor among those who heard Obama’s name compared to those who didn’t.

Tesler started looking for “issues that people don’t have strong feelings about, and issues that weren’t already folded into the current partisan alignment,” as he put it. Obama started feeding plenty of them—the stimulus, health care reform, cap-and-trade, all relatively new issues without firmly established loyalties. Tesler began working with the polling outfit YouGov to match how voters’ changing views on them matched up to their answers to the racial-resentment questions.

He found a “spillover of racialization” into health care reform: Voters who heard descriptions of the contrasting components of the 1993 Clinton and 2009 Obama proposals were more likely to grow disapproving of Obama’s when they heard the presidents’ names—as long as they demonstrated racial resentment elsewhere in the survey.

During Barack Obama's first presidential campaign my mother and I would talk about his future prospects. Like many black folks of a certain generation she went from disbelief that he even had a chance of winning, to worry about his safety from assassination, to tears on election night, and disappointment at his tenure to date. These conversations are undoubtedly quite common among many Americans who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. She, like me, still supports the President. In 2012, he is the best of a horrible set of alternatives. Ultimately, while he is not a "Black" President, Obama is still a President who happens to be black...for what that is worth.

And there lies the sad truth of his predicament, does it not?

Those progressives who dreamed that Obama would combine the cool pose of Shaft, and the anger of the Incredible Hulk, in the form of a black Lyndon B Johnson, are predictably quite disappointed. Obama is a Right leaning centrist. Despite his efforts to compromise with the Republican Party at any cost, Barack is tarred as a Socialist-Communist-Authoritarian-Anti-American by the conservative mouth breathing troglodyte classes and their masters at Fox News. In total, President Obama is a bound man incapable of pleasing anyone.

Some of the opposition to the President is rooted in "principled" partisanship--the common good be damned. Other opponents cannot stand Obama because he is not "progressive" enough, having to their eyes abandoned the "radical" potential of his candidacy. In these examples, hostility to Barack Obama is conscious and intentional. By comparison, there are others whose opposition to Obama is rooted in the deep subconscious.

For these people, President Obama is damned both because of his policy orientations and his race. Serious political observers immediately identified the notion of a "post-racial" America as a lie and chimera. White supremacy is one of America's greatest inventions: it was refined and perfected here. One election cycle will not vanquish such a powerful social force. As my mother keenly observed, there are white people who hate Obama because he is black, breathing, and in the White House.

Recent research on race and political psychology reinforces this point. As demonstrated by Brown University's Michael Tesler, white respondents who score high on measures of "racial resentment" are much more likely to change their basic opinions about political matters when Barack Obama is mentioned.

I am not surprised by these findings. White supremacy is a type of mental sickness. That many white folks would reflexively reverse their support of a given issue based on a frame that introduces Obama into the equation is expected. Why? Because white privilege, white racism, and the white racial frame are social pathologies that orient and ground people in a given reality. Race trumps reason and becomes a decision rule in a racially perverse cognitive schema.

Nevertheless, I remain fascinated by one aspect of Tesler's research:

Even presidential pets were viewed through the same lens. Tesler showed 1,000 YouGov respondents a picture of a Portuguese water dog and asked how favorably they felt toward it. Half saw the dog introduced as Bo Obama, and half as Ted Kennedy’s dog, Splash. (Both political dogs are the same breed, but the picture was of Obama’s.) Those with negative feelings toward blacks thought less of Obama’s dog.

I love dogs. Tesler's finding that white racial resentment extends to Bo, a canine, is a sign of how damaging white racism is to those afflicted with it. The social science suggests that the activation of white racial animus and hostility is a halo effect which extends to anyone associated with President Obama.

I understand the methodology and argument: But yet, I am still left asking how can you dislike a dog based only on his owner?

Redd Foxx, the legendary African American comedian, had a running joke about "black habits." This was his way of deconstructing the ugliness of racism and its arbitrary rules. He goofed on the idea that there are stereotypes about black folks, where if you don't fit those tropes one had best catch up in order to validate the white gaze.

By implication, are there "black ways" of acting, seeing, knowing, behaving, and thinking? Does this extend to our pets?

I have two dogs. In my mind both are still with us. Luke and Leia were part of the same litter. She passed away from cancer last November. He is still here, being difficult, charming, loyal, and funny. After 16 years--alive both in the flesh and spirit--they are indulged their eccentricities.

Dogs are humankind's original Frankenstein monsters: we made them. They also take on our attributes and traits over the years. And yes, our animal friends do begin to look and act like their human parents as the years advance (any pet owner will support that observation).

USS Liberty? Check. October Surprise? Check. The Maine? Check. The Mossadegh/ Lumumba / "interventions", et al? Check and double-check)... shit confirmed in the frickin NYT, ferchrissakes... and rather than see these "limited hangouts" as confirmations of an entirely predictable and much larger pattern, we shrug them off as aberrations of a supposedly dark age the Gubmint has long-since outgrown!

(sfx: phlegm-rich Satanic chuckle)

Don't feel bad, though. Our minds have been terraformed (and our material realities constricted and metered) by some of the finest amoral minds recruited from Harvard, Princeton, Yale and MIT. In fact, if the Evil Ones haven't recruited your ass by now, you can't be very good at what you do, Negro!

Damn.

One of the foundational concepts in the study of American public opinion is that attitudes are remarkably unstable. As such, they can be influenced by how questions are presented and framed. The American people are also relatively non-ideological. Here, they do not hold what students and observers of politics would understand to be a consistent worldview. There is an exception: on matters of race the American people do know how they feel, are willing to express their feelings, and their opinions are well-structured.

In total, the American people do have "values" which they ostensibly advance through the political process. But, the American people meander and muddle through the specifics of these issues, groping and feeling, trying to find their way with a relative lack of sophistication.

As I have shared here many times, I am resolute in my belief that the masses are asses. The question then becomes is the public's lack of sophistication, limited knowledge about public policy, and attraction to spectacle and empty political rhetoric cultivated or natural? Is the Culture War/Real America White right wing populism organic? Alternatively, is such zeal handed down from on high by elites? Likewise, are the symbolic politics of the Left substantive? Are the people really speaking back to Power? Does Power even care?

There is one area of public concern where this question is a settled matter. The American people are manipulated by political elites into supporting unnecessary wars and conflicts abroad. When I discuss this question with my students, and offer up the obvious--at least to my/your eyes that the political leadership class in a democracy is dependent on propaganda for legitimacy--they look shocked and upset. As I turn the knife a bit and include how their consumerist impulses are manufactured and manipulated by the dream merchants, and not an expression of an authentic self, the hurt is tangible.

I learn a good deal from my students as well. When we talk about the War on Terror, 9/11, and America's imperial exploits, they more often than not confess their ignorance about such matters. These college age students feel powerless. They have a world of information, quite literally at their fingertips, but choose not to engage it substantively.

In response to Steve's observations about the truth hiding in plain sight, and the public's complicity on these matters, I have a standard list of explanations which I offer. Our politics are sick, and this sickness can be explained by a few things:

1. There are approximately 30 million illiterate people in the United States. The politics of spectacle, culture war, and faux populism are a response to this fact.

2. Americans have been socialized into being citizen consumers in a market democracy. Consequently, they are not active, responsible, forward thinking, or virtuous.

3. There is no liberal media. There is only a corporate media. Consent is manufactured; the terrain for "approved" discourse is narrow. For example, see the howls in response to Chris Hayes' very reasonable intervention regarding the overuse of the word "hero" in regards to members of the military that he made over the Memorial Day weekend.

4. Hard news is dead. Long live soft news.

5. Information is not knowledge. All of us in the Internet age have witnessed a revolution in how information is shared and circulated. The Facebook Millennial generation have come of age in this moment and know no alternative. Unfortunately, as a society we have not developed the critical skills necessary to synthesize citizenship, information, and knowledge. Moreover, as I wrote about here, for many young people "politics" and "activism" consists of clicking "like" on Facebook or wearing plastic wristbands or hoodies. This can be parallel or even pre-political behavior. It is no substitute for substantive political engagement that involves personal commitment, risk, and material resources.

6. The public schools have utterly failed. They are producing passive citizens who are drones for the neoliberal order. The universities are complicit: they fashion an experience which is prefaced on a logic where "the customer is always right," and critical pedagogy and learning are secondary to high course enrollments, sports stadiums, and trends such as "smart classrooms," iclickers, and the empty rhetoric of "student centered" approaches to learning.

7. The dreams of digital democracy and a vibrant Internet that brought together people of different views and beliefs has not come to pass. The blogosphere and online news media are balkanized. Epistemic closure is real. This is especially true on the Right. We are (more often than not) quite literally talking to ourselves and those other folks who already agree with us.

8. The life worlds, communities, and realities of conservatives and progressives, Red State and Blue State, are increasingly divergent, separate, and apart. How can we even come together to solve common problems when basic empirical facts cannot be agreed upon? Add in the bastard marriage of radical religion in the form of Christian Dominionism to Ayn Randian libertarianism and matters are made even worse.

The sum effect of these elements is crystallized in the following ideal typical example. The public actually believes that the enemies of the American government hate the American people--notice I separate the two--because of our "freedoms."

This con is no accident. What would you add to the above list? And can this "mental terraforming" be undone?

Friday, June 1, 2012

During every presidential election campaign in recent memory the pundit classes have tried to figure out the riddle of the white working class (male) voter. Why do they support Republicans? Is the support by white people who are not "middle class" for a political party whose economic policies grossly favor the rich a sign of false consciousness? Is this dynamic a function of how white race prejudice is manipulated in the service of white identity politics?

The topic is worthy of recurring discussion because it hits on the intimate relationship between race and class in the West, specifically, and in the United States, in particular. Race and class evolved together from the 17th century onward; in all, the latter is the crucible in which the former was made. We cannot escape this shadow even in the Age of Obama.

To my eyes, this puzzle, while fascinating, is not particularly difficult to unpack. The "white working class" as understood by Thomas Frank and others is often vaguely (if not incorrectly) specified. When the white working class is defined as those white men without a college degree, then yes they do tend to support Republicans much more than Democrats.

When this same cohort is defined by income, then the white poor, as poor folk generally do, tend to overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party.

The fear by Democratic strategists that the Republicans are making huge inroads with the white working class can be largely explained by 1) how the South was flipped to the GOP over the last few decades; and 2) that the Republicans have been pealing away support from the Democrats with voters at almost all income levels.

The other key element for deciphering white working class support for Mitt Romney is that white people are the single largest, and most protected racial group in this country's history. They have uniquely benefited from the Racial State and its focused efforts to create wealth, generate income for, and transfer assets (almost) exclusively to white people from the Homestead Act, through to the invention of the white middle class in the post World War 2 era, and into the present.

White privilege is deeply attune to any threat at its status. Consequently, as recent public opinion data details, whites see racism as a "zero sum" game where racial equality means that there are clear winners and losers. Here, a (perceived) end to discrimination against people of color is interpreted as a threat to white people's group position and the inauguration of "reverse racism" as the status quo ante.

White Americans, and white men in particular, are also more likely to be less hopeful about the future during the time of the Great Recession. Interestingly, while black and brown folks are suffering much more, it is white men who are feeling the most aggrieved. Finally, despite Barack Obama's careful avoidance of any type of serious policy advocacy on behalf of people of color, the symbolism of a black President, and America's demographic shifts, have primed a deep reservoir of unconscious and implicit racial bias that plays off of white racial resentment, and makes the white working class less likely to support the Democratic Party.

Last week, The Washington Post offered up another chapter in this long running conversation. Cohen and Tumulty's article had a gem of writing that neatly captured the diametrically opposed life-worlds, as well as the differing political calculi of (a particular cohort) of white voters as compared to people of color.

Are the masses asses?

Fifty percent of all voters say Obama would do more to advance the interests of the middle class more generally, and 44 percent say so of Romney.

On that question, Obama has an advantage of 53 percent to 41 percent among those who think their foothold in the middle class is relatively secure, while the two candidates divide about equally among those struggling to stay there.

That overall parity, as has been the case in the past, disguises a vast racial divide. Among white voters trying to stay in the middle class, Romney is considered the better candidate for that group by a 20-point margin; Obama is preferred by better than 3 to 1 among middle-class nonwhite voters, regardless of their sense of security.

Whites and nonwhites — as well as voters across party lines — agree that Romney would do more than Obama to advocate for the economic interests of wealthy Americans.

Mitt Romney would actually continue many of the Bush era policies that created the Great Recession. His austerity politics, Ayn Rand dreams, and naked desire to further starve demand by forcing income and resources further up to the plutocrats would make the economy worst and not better. I grant that the American voting public is not sophisticated. Nor, do they have a deep grasp of public policy. But as revealed by this survey, even they know that Obama is more likely to help the middle class, and Romney is an exclusive agent of the rich.

Yet, it seems that white racial group affinity trumps economic self-interest for many white voters.

Reversing the gaze. What of minority voters? They have suffered the most under the Obama administration, but are among his most ardent supporters. There is much evidence that people of color, both as a life necessity in a country where politics was/is very personal, and because we are keen students of power, are quite sophisticated in our political assessments. Obama may have had his finger in a bursting damn, and most certainly has done little as a "race man," but could it be that people of color understand that he is the better candidate when faced with the hellish alternative of a Tea Party GOP President?

In all, the model of a "rational" voters may be misspecified. Those white voters who support culture war issues and will do anything to get the black guy out of the White House, even at their own financial expense, may simply have a different set of values upon which they base their political behavior. Likewise, those black and brown folks who support Obama despite the economy may be moved by racial symbolism (never forgetting that white voters are deeply motivated by White identity politics too) and a sense of realpolitik that sees Barack as the best of two less than ideal options.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Mitt Romney's "Barack Obama Isn't Working" campaign is a genius political move. Less clumsy than the infamous Willie Horton ad, it is a more elegant and refined racial appeal for a slightly more civilized "colorblind" age.

As such, Mitt Romney's suggestion that Barack Obama is "not working" deftly draws on a set of stereotypes from the American popular imagination where black people, and black men in particular, are depicted as lazy and not self-sufficient. This is one of the core attributes of what social scientists have termed "symbolic racism."

This stereotype is central to contemporary right-wing political discourse, and can trace its lineage back to the Southern Strategy under Richard Nixon, and through to Ronald Reagan's mobilization of anti-black sentiment with his allusions to "welfare queens" and "strapping young black bucks" who buy steaks with food stamps. As part of this pattern, the 2012 Republican campaign has featured such onerous moments as Rick Santorum's suggesting that black Americans are parasites who live off of white people, as well as Newt Gingrich advising young people of color (because they are especially lazy and pathological) that they should be janitors in order to learn a "work ethic."

The polite and more refined bigotry that drives Romney's "Barack Obama Isn't Working" campaign is more careful than that of his Tea Party GOP brethren. However, it still plays off of the same sentiments and crude racial stereotypes about African Americans. Moreover, Romney's more "polite" racism resonates because it exists in a right-wing imaginary that considers Obama a "Socialist," wallows in birtherism, and has marshaled faux populist zeal in order to mark out clear boundaries of civic belonging where to be a "real" American requires that a person be White. In all, the right-wing echo chamber is unapologetic in its use of racial stereotypes, mobilization of white racial resentment, and outright race prejudice. Romney can fly above the racist fray, but still benefit from how such attitudes have helped to prep the political battlefield for his success.

Romney's devious narrative about President Obama's lack of success, incompetence, and implied laziness is masterful on a number of levels.

1. The claim that Barack Obama isn't working has a veneer of plausible deniability. Romney claims that the slogan is "historical" in nature, borrowing fromThatcher's anti-Labour campaign in the United Kingdom during the late 1970s. Through this logic, there is no racial animus at work; racism cannot possibly be present in the suggestion that Barack Obama isn't working because the slogan is inspired from events both decades ago, and in another country.

In the United States, and given how the color line has structured American life, operates in the country's collective subconscious, and provides a set of scripts which impact our perceptions of one another, the wellsprings of Romney's slogan are of little importance.

Question: would there be an equivalent silence if a politician campaigning for high office suggested that his Jewish rival was cheap? Or that his Asian-American competitor for the same office was devious, sneaky, or untrustworthy?

I would suggest that the precarious position of blacks in American society makes them uniquely vulnerable to the use of racial appeals in political discourse.

It is also important to note how language involves both the transmission,
reception, and circulation of ideas between a speaker and the audience.The repeated suggestion that a black man "isn't working" signals to deeply held biases that link together the black body, black personhood, and stereotypes about poverty, work ethic, and respectability. A listener, or in this case a voter, does not have to be conscious of how these concepts motivate his or her behavior. As research on racial attitudes and political behavior has repeatedly demonstrated, white voters "get" these racial cues and are quite responsive to them--conservatives and right-leaning independents especially so.

2. Any effort to call out Romney's use of racial stereotypes would play into the politics of white racial resentment and white backlash that came in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. The associated and invented language of "the race card" and "reverse racism" are based on a premise that white supremacy is a thing of the past. Since the election of Barack Obama, the right-wing media and other elites have been able to push this narrative even further--white people are now oppressed, and despite all available sociological data that suggests otherwise, anti-white racism is now a plague upon the land. To attack Romney's campaign slogan is to fuel the howls of white victimology.

3. In the age of conservative "colorblindness," racism is defined by intent. This is a function of the personalization of race prejudice wherein racist social structures and institutional arrangements of power are conveniently ignored. Racism is universal. It is no longer a sin unique to white people. Consequently, the intent behind a person's words and deeds trump both the context and consequences of their actions. If Romney were to deny that his ad was "racist"--which Romney would most certainly do--one of the evasions would be that "he did not intend it that way." The same deflection would be flipped around on the critic who pointed out the problematic nature of Romney's appeal to Obama's imagined laziness in order to win over white voters. In keeping with the colorblind/reverse racism script, Mitt Romney would now become a victim, as the act of calling someone a "racist" in post-Civil Rights America is a bigger sin than racism itself.

4. Accidents and coincidence. Mitt Romney's choice of a slogan that leverages one of the most pernicious and deeply rooted stereotypes about black men in American society (next to the myth of the black rapist) is no accident. Romney did not personally select the language "Obama Isn't Working." His consultants (a cadre of psychologists, marketing experts, political advisers, and focus groups) perfected the language, visuals, and narrative of Romney's campaign ad. The way that the campaign mines white animus and stereotypes towards the country's first black president, while skillfully playing along the edge of being an overt racial appeal, is a delicately choreographed balancing act: this grace does not come without much practice and reflection.

Mitt Romney's "Obama Isn't Working" campaign is a racial smart bomb aimed at white Independents (and other right-leaning fence-sitters). Ultimately, Mitt Romney is vulnerable on many issues such as his gangster capitalist roots, insincerity, aloofness, religion, the Tea Party GOP's failed economic policies and obstructionist behavior. Romney's flank is also exposed because he is the nominee for a political party that is possessed by Culture Warriors whose views are outside of the American mainstream. These are weaknesses to be exploited.

However, I would suggest that folks not sally forth and engage Romney regarding the racial invective present in his "Obama Isn't Working" campaign theme. To do so, would be to fight on Romney's chosen terrain. Nor would such an engagement offer up many political gains. The cause would be noble; the battle would still be lost.

Once more Mr. Romney, well played, very well played indeed. You are a worthy foe.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Time to get our rhythm back. I hope your holiday was restful. Mine was interesting. I was reminded of the fact that I am a "civilian" and not a bad man (I knew that, but having it reinforced was useful), I saw Men in Black 3 and Bernie (both are good fun, the former had some particularly pleasant surprises), and many comment worthy news items came and went without an intervention because Memorial Day weekend is not generally a time during which folks spend that much time on these Internets.

As such, we are going to do some catching up this week. I have an obligatory comment on the "white working class men who hate Barack Obama" meme, as well as some more begging to do for our collective effort to raise funds in order to buy some slavery artifacts on EBAY (we can do better folks, much better). I have learned one thing from my virgin foray into fund-raising: repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition is how one gets the change out of pockets.

Last week, there was an interesting item in The Wall Street Journal by Andrew Roberts that explored the idea of "looking presidential." What signals to a voter or a public that a given person is the "right" type to be President? Is it height, name, speech patterns, confidence, style, personality, or some combination of all of these traits? Alternatively, does a person begin to look more "presidential" in hindsight, where the longer one holds the office, the more that the public adjusts their expectations of the position to fit him?

What does it mean to "look presidential," and why does it matter? An enormous amount of the media coverage of presidential candidates is focused on whether or not he (or, very rarely, she) "looks presidential."

Grow up, America! Has the great democratic system of the Republic really come down to choosing leaders not on the basis of what they say, or even the way they say it, but on the way they fill a suit while saying it?

Looking presidential can be broadly translated to mean being around 6 feet tall, relatively slim and broad-shouldered, and having a full head of preferably pepper-and-salt-colored hair and a ready, winning smile. It isn't being only 5 feet 6 inches tall and slightly balding that makes me want to blaspheme at the TV screen whenever I hear approving talk of Messrs. Romney, Perry and Huntsman "looking presidential." It's because I'm a historian—and where would the United States be if she had always adopted such blatantly look-ist criteria in the past?

And yes, I said "him," as gender is very much a key part of the equation in how authority is assessed in these United States.

I understand Roberts' desire to elevate oneself above such "petty" concerns as race and gender in working through how a person can look "presidential" (or not). However, this is insufficient for a critical examination of such a question as it applies to President Obama. In all, Roberts' choice to ignore race is an example of the white racial frame in action (who needs to talk about race stuff?), and an object lesson in the failure of colorblind politics (we can just pretend that Obama is just like all the other presidents).

For example Roberts writes:

Yet surprisingly few great American presidents have "looked presidential" (Ronald Reagan and JFK being the obvious exceptions). A much larger and more interesting number looked the part but never made it to the White House. Think about it: John McCain, John Kerry, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Adlai Stevenson (despite baldness), Bob Dole, Barry Goldwater (very much), and even Al Gore until he opened his mouth—they all could have come from central casting. Even Thomas Dewey might have qualified until he was fatally described as looking like "the little man on the top of the wedding cake".

Ultimately, in his efforts to be race neutral, Roberts ignored one of the most important variables influencing how Barack Obama is assessed by the American people: Obama's race is symbolically potent for voters across the color line. Such an omission is willful--however well intentioned--and not accidental.

It is a given that much of the opposition to Obama is purely partisan. By extension, in the United States, political ideology is in turn influenced by racial attitudes, feelings, sentiments, and anxieties. Some love Obama because he is a person of color; others despise him precisely because of that fact.

What to do when much of that hostility is rooted in unconscious bias? Can a black man look "presidential" when on a deep social, cultural, and cognitive level many in the public are incapable of seeing a non-white person as being a "real" American? What does this hold for the 2012 election, when Obama now has a record to be assessed against?

They say once you go black you never go Black. Unconscious racial bias may suggest an alternative decision rule: you ain't had it right till you did it White...and once you had black you go running back to White.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

As a ghetto nerd, I am also an expert on zombies. This is one of our core competencies. I have a novel (and associated screenplay) I am writing about the rising of the dead. One of the basic plot details is that State authorities will try to hide the initial outbreak in plain sight. They will simply report the killing and eating of human beings by zombies as random acts of violence.

This subterfuge will work at first; but the outbreak spreads exponentially. Consequently, when 4 zombies create 16 more, and then 256, and so and so on, the obvious truth will be impossible to conceal. The police and military will be able to stop small scale outbreaks. I also do not foresee a Battle of Yonkers type engagement with hordes of the undead. The U.S. military is simply too expert at killing large numbers of people who gather out in the open--MLRS, cluster munitions, claymore mines, canister shot, gunships, artillery, and good old fashioned machine gun fire would devastate a large group of zombies.

There are a few complications though: 1) the outbreak will spread so fast that it will be difficult for the military and police to mobilize effectively; 2) most American military power is forward deployed and not available for civil defense (think 9/11 on a far larger scale); 3) there would be civil uprisings and mass hysteria, making the zombies the least of the military's worries; 4) if containment can be achieved an area can be swept and cleared, however the battle space (if you can call it that) will be so kinetic and ill-defined that such control may not be possible. In short, I think we would be screwed. Alas.

I closely monitor these stories in the media, and over the years have compiled a long list of seemingly unrelated incidents of human cannibalism.

For example, this week it was reported that a man ate at least 12 people in the Yunnan province of China. In Miami yesterday, a naked man was shot and killed while eating the face of another person next to a busy highway.

They are coming to you get you Barbra us. I would have my bug out bag prepped and ready folks. Here are some documents that may be of assistance. But, if you don't have access to a U.S. Army or Marine fireteam and their organic weaponry, the manual may be an entertaining distraction while the world goes to hell around you.

Here is the original story that was posted on the Miami Herald website. They have since changed it, adding details about "cocaine psychosis," and that the officer shot at the assailant at least 6 times before he finally dropped him.

****

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami police shot and killed a man on the MacArthur Causeway Saturday afternoon, and police sources told CBS4 they had no choice: the naked man they shot was trying to chew the face off another naked man, and refused to obey police orders to stop his grisly meal.

The bizarre shooting happened shortly after 2 p.m., when police responded to a 911 call about two naked men fighting on a bike path along the Causeway, which was packed with traffic on a busy holiday weekend.

Miami police have not confirmed the details of what happened next, but sources close to the investigation told CBS4 News that officers found one man gnawing on the face of another, in what one police source called the most gruesome thing he’d ever seen.

The fight was taking place at the causeway exit near the Miami Herald building, and amazed officers tried to stop it, ordering the man making a meal out of the other man to stop.

Sources told CBS4 that the man refused to obey, and continued his attack. Investigators sharing limited details about the confrontation, saying only that the two men were fighting and the officers felt they had no choice but to take deadly force.

“During this confrontation an officer did discharge his weapon striking one of the individuals, said Det. Willie Moreno, spokesperson for Miami Police.

But the sources close to the investigation say that dry recitation of the facts apparently doesn’t go far enough. They said the man still would not give in to police commands, so officers fired again.

“That individual has lost his life right now,” Moreno said.

With the attacker dead, lying nude on the pavement, officers and paramedics were able to get to his victim and rush him to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Police sources say the man had virtually no face and was unrecognizable.

Police have shared no information about his identity or condition.

Once the bizarre confrontation came to an end, police were left with the task of figuring out what had happened. The investigation forced the closure of the causeway from Miami Beach to Miami, and also closed an exit to the causeway from I-95.

The investigation snarled traffic for hours and delayed thousands of motorists until ways could be found to get them off the causeway.

Police have had little official to say about the details, and have not released the name of the cannibalistic attacker.

Friday, May 25, 2012

As always, I am sharing news so that you can be brought to your knees--suffering in pain as you try to follow along with my horrid news analysis, commentary, and hellish voice.

Cue self-deprecating drums.

More seriously, you have three opportunities to get a dose of my respectable pimp juice. The good folks at The Ed Show have invited me to do a live radio interview today at approximately 2:30pm EST. Check out his website in order to find out how to stream it in real time. Saturday, I will be on Ring of Fire radio. Mike P is always giving WARN love. I appreciate him for that. To my ear (and I am my harshest critic), our interview is one of the best that I have ever done. He and I were improvising off of each other and our convo went to some unexpected places. Please check it out.

Sunday, I will be on Joshua Holland's radio show. He is one of the head muckety mucks over at Alternet. I have a piece that I have been working on these last two days--thus my light posting on WARN--which we will be discussing. My newest long form essay explores white victimology, black crime, mobs, and racial violence. I like it. Hopefully, it will resonate and perhaps go viral--either as a function of praise or disgust.

Please share these links with your friends, and on your websites, Twitter, and elsewhere. We are Respectable Negroes is growing. I owe it all to you. And I will always acknowledge that I am only as good as you folks push me to be.

Thank you.

Here is a random breaking kayfabe professional wrestling moment. This is the visual that I always keep in my mind in order to stay on point: never be the Shock Master. Repeat. Never be the Shock Master:

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Reverend James Reeb. Jonathan Daniels. Andrew Goodman. Michael Schwerner. Viola Gregg Liuzzo. John Brown. These are the names of white folks who lived ethical lives and placed themselves in harm's way for the freedom of Black Americans. They also died trying to save white America from its own self-destructive racial wickedness.

In the Age of Obama, the Internet, and post-Civil Rights America, where have men and women of this type of iron will and principle gone? Are they on the lecture circuit? Occupy Wall Street? In the academy? Doing community organizing? Working silently in the shadows?

The nature of white supremacy and the Racial State have most certainly changed and evolved. One does not necessarily confront institutional white supremacy and meta racism with the same strategies and tools that forced down Jim and Jane Crow. Styles do makes fights; perhaps, there is no better example than considering people's movements and how the State and market democracies are vulnerable (or not) to them.

My concerns are not limited to white anti-racists. The same questions can be extended to black and brown people. As I have mentioned on numerous occasions, there is a desire to buy into the myth that all of our people marched with King, stood up to white power and Bull Connor, wore berets and leather with the Panthers, or hunkered down with Brother Robert Williams.

The reality is that most people, in any society where collective action occurs, are free riders who benefit from the blood, sweat, and tears of others. But, these same folks do not want to be left out of their generation's defining struggle--just like the many adult children who find out either during a deathbed confessional, or organizing the deceased's estate, that their dads lied about fighting in World War 2.

Many African Americans discover a similar truth. Mom and dad were not at the sit-ins. Perhaps for fear of going to jail, losing their jobs, or other practical concerns, they were on the sidelines. Nevertheless, they/we/most of us benefited while not contributing though direct action.

I hold a key appreciation for the idea that "the political" is an expansive concept that is not limited to formal political behavior. Yet, and as I have grown a bit older, I have become increasingly suspicious of a tendency to embrace the symbolic, and often the trivial, as constituting purposive politics which substantively challenges arrangements of power and resources.

"Hoodie" politics. Wearing multi-colored rubber or plastic wristbands. Clicking "like" on a cause that will circulate around Facebook. Posting a comment on a blog. The Stop Kony campaign. All of these examples involve making one individual feel like they are participating in a grand struggle. There is no risk, demand, threat, or cost. Thus, can it really be considered substantive political action?

A broadly inclusive public sphere is integral to a healthy democracy (these behaviors can in fact be "pre-political" or serve as a barometer of the public mood; we must also be careful to note how there is also a rich history of debate societies, salons, pamphleting, and public rallies that online spaces are a direct descendant of).

However, my ultimately worry is that for a whole generation these online acts may constitute the limit(s) of their political engagement. There is a double bind at work here as well. On one hand, the major organs of power which influence the day-to-day lives of those born in the neoliberal age that came into being in the 1970s are profoundly anti-democratic. The banking, finance, military, marketing, as well as the commercial and industrial actors who constitute the global superclass, could care less about a given person's vote, sit-in, "approved" protesting, or the like.

Moreover, the sleight of hand is that while they have disdain for democracy, these same agents benefit from the illusion of participation and legitimacy. Thus, the need to create alternate spaces for "democratic behavior" like social media and the Internet. The illusion and spectacle of shows like American Idol and America's Got Talent are cousins to this phenomenon: Americans can "vote" for the winners in a meaningless human freak show; but their votes in the "real world" are a choice between two bankrupt and moribund political parties, an act that has little transformative power over the forces which impact the contours of their society.

The young woman in this video offers up a smart and sharp reflection on race, white privilege, and the lazy thinking that motivates much of the liberal shared empathy crowd who believe that slogans are a challenge to power.

Is this the best they/we/us have to offer? Talking into a camera on Youtube is the new face of politics in the 21st century? What type of politics come from a virtual public sphere that is all chatter and no action in the real world?

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Last week, the drip, drip, drip, of evidence surrounding the Trayvon Martin case became a deluge. George Zimmerman's hunting and killing of Trayvon Martin has been a national play, one that I described as a farce and tragedy, which reminds us of how the United States is still in many ways a country that is "separate, hostile, and unequal."

The divides in public opinion about the guilt and respective innocence of Zimmerman and Martin are screens upon which differences in race and life experiences across the colorline have been projected. Interestingly, the most obvious element in this narrative about justice and the color line has gone little commented upon.

Yes, Martin's killing by Zimmerman is "about" race. But, race works in ways that are both subtle and obvious. Trayvon is blessed or cursed--depending on one's own point of view--with a "black" name. Names may not be destiny. But, as social scientists have demonstrated, they do tell us something about class, race, community, neighborhood, social capital, families, aspirations, norms and culture.

Consciously or not, individuals make judgments about one's relative worth or personhood based on their names. These judgments are also implicitly about belonging, national identity and citizenship--for an object lesson in this reality, one does not need to look any farther than President Obama and the conspiranoid Birthers.

For example, researchers at the University of Chicago sent out resumes with "black" sounding names and "white" sounding names to prospective employers. The former were imminently qualified with Ivy League pedigrees and great job experience. The latter were former felons with fewer skills. Not at all surprising to students of race, white privilege, and racial inequality, the white applicants were contacted for job interviews at a far higher rate.

In a complementary example, there is a social psychology experiment in which participants are given a story to read about a young woman with a child who goes shopping at a store for batteries.

There are two versions of the story offered. In one, she is a black woman (as indicated by her name and other clues); in the other story, the protagonist is a white woman. The other facts of the story are identical. When asked identical questions about the narrative(s), respondents envision the black woman as a welfare queen, a thief, and irresponsible. The white woman is noble, a single mother trying to do the right thing by her kids, and a good person.

The Right-wing media depicts a black, man-child, giant negro, thug ready to rape and kill at will. Here, Zimmerman is a noble victim. The mainstream and "progressive" media offers a different depiction of events. There, Trayvon Martin is an innocent person walking home with a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea who is killed by an overzealous racist vigilante.

These divides are 1) significant because conservatives are motivated in their political worldview by racial animus in ways that others are not and 2) self-fulfilling where these disparate views of reality and political events are self-reinforcing, and self-perpetuating.

The story is the thing. As an experiment in perception and framing, I have removed any overt signals to either the race of Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman. Moreover, I have renamed Trayvon Martin "Dale Hill." To my eyes and ears this is a very "white" name. I thought about playing around with the genders of Martin and Zimmerman--but parsimony and efficiency ruled out such a counter-factual.

I have also updated the story based on the new information about the investigation that has been made available these last few weeks. My framing of the story leaves out certain incidental facts, emphasizes other bits of information, and of course has a particular narrative.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Just because one can do a thing, does not necessarily mean that they should do a thing.

My research interests are centered broadly on race and popular culture. In fact, one of my main questions involves race and representation in mass media, and how those narratives both legitimate and reinforce racial ideologies and "common sense," as well as tell us something more broadly about hierarchies of power in American society.

Given those interests, I have concluded that Tyler Perry's body of work constitutes one of the most pernicious, befouled, racist, and "ugly" depictions of black humanity that I have ever seen. As such, his "art" and role in the black culture industry is more than deserving of study.

Those qualifiers noted; proceeding from the love principle; and giving respect to folks that are working on this proposed project, I do have to wonder about how we explain our efforts at knowledge generation to those outside of our small world--assuming that we ought to feel obligated to (which is an unsettled question).

In addition, this dilemma is a nice segue back to the controversy over at The Chronicle of Higher Education a few weeks back regarding a vicious and ill founded editorial about Black Studies and the quality of the dissertations written in that field.

Dr. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and one of my favorite ghetto nerd man crushes, has a great story about how scientists are often incapable of communicating with the general public about the importance of their work. There, he explains how one of his colleagues was unable to explain to a government committee why Congress should fund a particle collider that would have been revolutionary in the capabilities it would have granted the scientific community.

During the hearings one of the representatives begged for a story, some excuse to give this researcher and his team the money for the project. Sadly, the scientist was unable to offer up a pitch that went beyond techno-babble. Predictably, the funding was denied. Dr. Kaku had a great suggestion: all his colleague had to say was that this machine would enable humanity to understand the mind of God as we took one more step closer to deciphering the most basic secrets of the universe.

Don't be mistaken. A collection of essays on the coonery and buffoonery of Tyler Perry is not going to help us understand such profound matters. This collection is also privately funded and subject to the free market (and how a niche audience will choose to embrace such a book or not). But, to those in academia, writers, and others who work in narrow disciplines, how do we "sell" our work to outsiders?

Ultimately, is how we approach such matters the difference between "specific" and "universal/general" intellectuals? Which of the roles should we strive to fulfill?

Here is the call for submissions. Perhaps one of you will forward a proposal.

For over a decade now Tyler Perry has entertained popular audiences with live, televised, and filmed performances of signature characters, including his most recognizable character, Madea. While some of his films have sparked public controversies about aesthetics, race, and respectability (or what some have described as the retrogressive and embarrassing nature of his work), Perry’s influence in contemporary media culture is undeniable. For instance, prior to his film career, Perry success on stage (ticket sales, video recordings of the plays, and merchandising) provided him with an estimated $150 million dollars a year. Not only has Perry has directed, produced, or starred in at least one film a year, his role in the television industry is increasing at a comparable rate. He is reportedly working to launch his own network, Tyler TV. Perry is at the center of aggressive media empire and production studio that has released over twenty commercially successful films and videos about parenting, marriage, morality, incest, domestic violence, and trauma in black families.

In light of these facts and the limited critical attention attributed to Perry, we are editing an anthology to examine his role in contemporary media culture. The essays in this edited collection will explore his work from a variety of critical and industrial perspectives by examining his self-presentation and public image as well as the films, television shows, theater performances, reception history, and academic and popular critiques and debates about his work.

Suggested essay topics can include (but are not limited to):

Christianity and Perry's films
Perry and trauma
The Madea films and the cinematic history of black men in drag
Oprah Winfrey and Perry
Television networks and Perry
The television shows (Meet the Browns, House of Payne, etc.)
Perry and "Black Aesthetics"
Perry and genre
The Boondocks “Pause” episode
Black Femininity/Masculinity
Perry’s stage career
Perry’s films and conventions of melodrama
For Colored Girls (2010)

Please submit abstracts (500 words maximum) along with an academic bio and contact details to tperryanthology@gmail.com by June 15, 2012. Final papers will be 6000-7000 words and should be submitted no later than November 1, 2012. Please address any questions to Karen Bowdre, TreaAndrea Russworm, and Samantha Sheppard to the e-mail listed above.

Friday, May 18, 2012

There is a pre 9/11 America
and a post 9/11 America.
After that day a new lexicon came into being. The Patriot Act, warrantless wire
tapping, GITMO, and the Department of Homeland Security were birthed in this
moment of our “great national derangement.”

In all, the national surveillance apparatus was turned
inward on the American people in ways that were unprecedented.

For example, as The Washington Post documented in its series Top Secret America, the 30,000 or so employees who listen in and monitor emails and phone conversations, do so both largely out of sight, and out of mind, of the
average citizen. And that is the trick is it not? Power is an abstraction until
you encounter it personally.

Chicago
is in the grip of NATO fever. Police are everywhere. Helicopters and fighter
jets are in the sky. The roads are being closed and public transit diverted.
The city is in the midst of a spectacle. Before the city unofficially hunkers
down for the weekend, I decided to go to Navy Pier—tourist trap, beach, convention
center, Ferris Wheel spot and people watching place—and sit, read a book, and
feed the birds.

I love animals. I am the guy who has a special voice for
when he meets a new doggie friend. As one of my friends observed, while she
gets all excited for babies, I could care less, as I immediately focus in on our
canine friends. I am the guy who saves old bread for birds. I keep it in a
plastic bag, a partial concession to my OCD (there is something fulfilling
about watching the bread pile up), so that once or twice a month I can feed the
pigeons that wait by the 'L' stop mocking the humans who are forced to rush to and
fro in our middling work-a-day routines.

But my real joy is the fantasy of
raising a bird army that I could use to conquer the world. For that I need
geese and seagulls. I go to Navy Pier in order to recruit them.

Over the course of several years, I have gotten pretty good
at making friends with the geese. I imagine they know me as "He the human with
the tasty garlic bread and barbecue potato chips." My bird foot soldiers are
pretty cool. The geese will eat out of my hand. They even follow me when I go
to sit down on the benches near Lake Michigan.

I would soon discover that this hobby and habit of feeding
birds at Navy Pier, in a city deep in the throngs of NATO fever, can be a
“suspicious” and dangerous thing.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Our plan is to do exactly what John McCain would not let us do: Show the world how Barack Obama’s opinions of America and the world were formed,” the proposal says. “And why the influence of that misguided mentor and our president’s formative years among left-wing intellectuals has brought our country to its knees.

Larry Elder will be paid 25,000 dollars for two weeks of work as an "articulate black" figurehead for a race baiting anti-Obama smear campaign. I always told you that being a boot black, lawn jockey, grinning from ear to ear, black conservative political coprophagist was extremely lucrative. Now you have third party confirmation of said fact.

[I cannot help but call attention to the racial micro-aggressions at play here as well: the favorite assumption being that black people are by definition inarticulate and stupid, thus the need to mark "articulate" as a qualifier.]

The metrosexual black Abe Lincoln has emerged as a hyper-partisan, hyper-liberal, elitist politician with more I than a bit of the trimmer in him. He's not only unable to command our country's greatest concern, the economy but he also finds himself sputtering in foreign affairs, engaged in bumbling, crude attempts to inject social issues and class warfare into this election and utterly unable to make a positive case for why he should president.

Yet we still "like" him.

This crumbling of the Obama phenomenon, properly exploited and explained, should have a devastating impact on the elusive independent, who doesn't pay all that close of attention but knows thin are bad and feels that it could get a whole lot worse.

But, they still "like" him.

The answer: millions of people. The practical puzzle then becomes are these voters already predisposed to vote for Romney anyway? Or will these types of racial appeals push right-leaning Independents in battleground states over the edge?

The architects of this Reverend Wright Gate 2.0 anti-Obama black animus strategy are also well aware of their vulnerability to "the race card." Here is their proposed shield and immunizing agent:

The instant response liberals give to any attack is to deem the attack as racist. In the case involving an African I American president, even more so. We have two ways to help mitigate that potential. First, include an extremely literate, conservative African American in our spokesman group. Our recommendation is Larry Elder, a prominent ABC talk radio host in California. We have discussed our approach with him in confidence and he immediately understood and "got it."

Larry was considered a potential U.S. Senate candidate in California during the last cycle. Mr. Elder will be in addition to ]oe Ricketts, Brian Baker and any other members of your group who would like to help spread the message. We have also had very tentative talks with a group of African American business leaders who could get substantially behind this effort. We will continue those talks only after concept approval.

The second way we will lessen their ability to attack from a racist angle is to carefully utilize a series of focus groups. First, on the storyboards, then on a rough cut of the final film, making fine-tuning adjustments in wording and visuals to increase the impact, while lessening any elements that could reasonably be deemed "racist."

The NY Times is reporting that the principal agent involved in this proposed campaign is already flip-flopping as he offers denials and repudiations of its content. Smoke and mirrors as they got caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar.

But, I do have to ask one question: Is the Right-wing Black Conservative bench so thin that the best clown their white handlers can summon up is Larry Elder?

"In near-contact wounds, the muzzle is not in contact with the skin, but is very close. In this case, the powder grains do not have a chance to disperse and leave a powder tattooing. The entrance wound is surrounded by a wide zone of powder soot, and seared, blackened skin. In intermediate-range wounds, the muzzle is held away from the skin but close enough that it still produces powder tattooing."

"In forensics there are four types of gunshot wound: Contact wound - The muzzle of the gun was applied to the skin at the time of shooting, Close Range - The muzzle of the gun was 6-8 inches away from the skin at shooting, Intermediate Range - The gun was 8 inches to 3.5 feet away, and Distant - The gun was over 3.4 feet away at the time of shooting."

2. Does anyone else find it problematic that Zimmerman, who detectives suspected of lying and offering multiple versions of the events that fateful evening, claimed he was struggling on the ground and had to shoot Trayvon from close range because of imminent threat. Does the coroner's report complicate this version of events?

3. Where are George Zimmerman's injuries? He refused treatment at the scene. The video taken in the police department shows someone walking quite easily and without assistance, not roughed up, and certainly not with any visible signs of head trauma. Moreover, Zimmerman went to his "family doctor" for care. Suspicious? Curious?

4. I was hit in the face with a baseball bat in elementary school. My nose was not broken, but it bled so much that it filled up several towels--I mean thick, ketchup-like, life fluid--and was swollen for several days. Is Zimmerman's diagnosis of a "closed fracture to his nose" at all believable?

5. Trayvon Martin only had one slight abrasion to a finger. If Zimmerman was pummeled by Martin, as he so claims, wouldn't his hands show some damage? Cuts, bruises? a fracture? I am not a badman by any stretch of the imagination. But on one night I had to fight for my life against an armed gunman. I got very lucky, but the shots I gave him to the jaw hurt my hands for days later. If Martin went all in as Zimmerman claims, I would have to imagine there would be visible injuries to the body even post-mortem. What am I missing here?

6. Finally, Trayvon Martin is recorded on tape screaming for mercy. If Martin is taking Zimmerman to the wood shed, why scream for help? Could it be that Zimmerman shot Martin from "intermediate range" in a fit of rage, unbalanced because of his meds, agitated, and simply killed the teen in cold blooded execution style murder?

Predictably, for those who believe that Zimmerman is a martyr and victim, this new information will be taken as "proof" of his innocence. I am more interested in how those who championed Trayvon Martin respond to this newest bit of information. Will they rally? Or has Zimmerman-Trayvon fever already been expended?

I have never been one to leave a battle once it has been joined. My concerns about these types of highly charged symbolic politics and cause celebres have been consistent--what happens when the 24 hour news cycle has exhausted itself? It is typical that folks are on to the next one so to speak; they enjoy being part of a bigger spectacle and "movement;" but, matters still remain unresolved.

Walter Lippman observed decades ago that the "newspaper man" is most interested in selling exciting stories. Editors and publishers frame stories for maximum appeal--as opposed to a deep and compelling pursuit of the truth. This is no less true in the age of new media and cable news.

In all, I would suggest that the deliberations surrounding George Zimmerman's murder trial should be focused on proximate and distal causes, the chain of events which led him to hunt down and kill a person, one guilty of no more than walking down the street.

The immediate cause of Trayvon Martin's shooting by George Zimmerman was a fight and scuffle in which the latter was clearly being bested by a superior pugilist. The second proximate cause, and the one most important here, was George Zimmerman's refusal to follow the police dispatcher's order to remain in his vehicle. The more macro level and prime element of causality in Zimmerman's killing of Trayvon Martin is a society that devalues the lives of young people of color, deems them always suspect (on an almost existential level) of crime and criminality, and empowers honorary whites--and those acting in the name of white authority--to shoot down and kill black men on a whim.

I would hope that the jury is capable of applying a bit of common sense as they work through this chain of events. I would also dream that the members of the jury can practice a bit of empathy, putting themselves in the shoes of an innocent teenager walking home at night, being stalked by a racially obsessed stranger who is intent on (quite likely) doing you harm. You fight for your life, you see that this faux-cop vigilante has a gun, terrified, you try to get control of the weapon lest he kill you. Too slow, there is a noise. You look down. Scared, extremities weakening, getting cold, adrenaline wearing off, you realize that you are going to die.

Your murderer George Zimmerman is shocked that guns apparently really do in fact hurt and kill people, he acted on his fantasy, playing Dirty Harry, but it is you who are dead. Zimmerman will be nauseous in the days to follow as he reflects on that night. Your parents will be scared and then heartbroken as your body lays unclaimed in a morgue on the slab. Zimmerman's defenders will rally, sending him hundreds of thousands of dollars for he is a stand-in for their aggrieved white victimhood in the face of "black crime" and "young hoodie thugs."

Trayvon Martin had every right to stand his ground in self defense. George Zimmerman instigated this whole deadly scenario. But history teaches us that in the United States black people do not have such a right to self-defense. From the Black Codes, Jim and Jane Crow, slave passes, racial profiling, and now to "stop and frisk," standing order number one is that African Americans must submit to white authority until given permission otherwise. The most basic rights of political belonging and citizenship, freedom of movement and safety in one's person, are contingent and circumstantial for black Americans.

George Zimmerman will walk free--do not be confused, he is not innocent by any stretch of the imagination. I hold little hope that the jury is capable of thinking through the steps which led a vigilante to kill an innocent person beyond the most immediate and final act, where self-defense by Trayvon Martin is interpreted as violent, unwarranted assault by the George Zimmerman faction, those who idolize him, and wish they could have acted as he did that faithful evening.

The question remains: what will the defenders of Trayvon Martin do now?

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Stop the presses! We have been so overwhelmed with reports of White Crime that it is impossible to give proper attention to this most earnest and wicked plague that has beset itself upon this country from coast to coast. Could it be the economy? A cultural flaw? Poor behavior that is trickling down from the criminally inclined white role models and elites in government, finance, and religion to the rank-and-file members of white society? We at WARN are flummoxed by the deluge.

While preparing to share tales of white debasement that include mothers prostituting their daughters, white neo nazi murder suicides, domestic terrorists running for public office, and international tales of intrigue where white American licentiousness has even infected the good people of Great Britain, this latest bit of scandalous news came into my humble hands.

One of our white crime watchers has been following our mantra: if you see white crime report it immediately!

Our society is only as safe as we respectable people make it; we must stand in the gap against the tide of a white society that is devolving before our very eyes!

While we may be prepared for common white thuggery and rapscallions, what can we do when those entrusted with protecting the public and enforcing order are corrupted by their own inner demons? Who protects us when white police run amok, murdering, abusing, and killing good Americans at their own leisure?

White police across the country have long demonstrated a propensity for perverse violence. Their deeds have included sodomizing men with plungers and electrocuting the genitalia of "prisoners" with tasers. And how can we forget the vicious assassination of an unarmed elderly black man in his own home by the white police sworn to serve and protect the public.

As is true with many positions in local government, it is a given that many white police have benefited from an old boys network where information on exams and positions in the constabulary are passed down from generation to generation. These incestuous hiring practices have clearly made the public less safe and encouraged white incompetence.

But the brigand-like assault on one of our fairest sex, a pregnant woman who was kicked in the stomach and beaten by Jerad Wheeler, a white police officer in Georgia, is epic and deserves it own place in the annals of white crime and cowardice! When will good people rise up against white skullduggery and wanton crime! When will we scream from the streets and the mountaintops that enough is enough! The monster even abuses harmless and vulnerable family pets! Evil is as evil does!

Once more, what shall we do with the white people?

When Dekalb County, Ga., police officer Jerad Wheeler tased her brother, Raven Dozie started crying and demanding to know why. Wheeler kicked the heavily-pregnant woman in the stomach.
While he is now under criminal investigation, his superiors on the
force squelched an internal affairs complaint and explicitly approve of
his conduct.

"What kind of a human being kicks a pregnant woman? I mean, forget
whether or not it is a police officer that is supposedly protecting
people," Dozier's attorney Mark Bullman said. Dozier filed a complaint
with the DeKalb police department's internal affairs unit, but it was
never investigated. Instead, four supervisors and an internal affairs
detective signed off that Wheeler's use of force met policy. ...
Fleischer filed an open records request and found two more use-of-force
complaints against Wheeler within the last nine months. In all three
cases, the victims were not the focus of the original police incident.

Wheeler was accused of twisting a 53 year-old woman's arm in 2011. This January, he shot a family's chained dog after showing up at the wrong home on a call.

****

Let it not be said that WARN and its white crime watchers ever practice the social evil and sin of race prejudice. The wickedness of white crime is such that it has brought all people down to its most low level.

Social hygiene and respectability demand that the fetid waters be drained--even if a few of our noble negro citizens were also incidentally swept up in the tide of ferocious white destructiveness and befouled--justice must be served.

Two sad souls have been tempted by the vices and delights of white crime. Pray for them my brothers and sisters.

2. Jesse James Thomas, arrested March 28 for public drunkenness, Thomas was wearing a sombrero when he jumped on an
officer's parked patrol car screaming his name, according to an account in the Sacramento Bee.

Monday, May 14, 2012

BILL WASIK: Let us begin with the most straightforward approach. Would
it be possible for a renegade group of military officers, or the officer
corps as a whole, to simply plot and carry out a coup d'état in the
United States?

EDWARD LUTTWAK: If somebody asked me to plan such a coup, I wouldn't take on the assignment.

CHARLES DUNLAP: I wouldn't either. [Laughs]

LUTTWAK: I've done it for other countries. But it just wouldn't work
here. You could go down the list and take over these headquarters, that
headquarters, the White House, the Defense Department, the television,
the radio, and so on. You could arrest all the leaders, detain or kill
off their families. And you would have accomplished nothing.

ANDREW BACEVICH: That's right. What are you going to seize that, having seized it, gives you control of the country?

LUTTWAK: You would sit in the office of the Secretary of Defense, and
the first place where you wouldn't be obeyed would be inside your
office. If they did follow orders inside the office, then people in the
rest of the Pentagon wouldn't. If everybody in the Pentagon followed
orders, people out in the military bases wouldn't. If they did, as well,
American citizens would still not accept your legitimacy.

RICHARD KOHN: It's a problem of public opinion. All of the organs of
opinion in this country would rise up with one voice: the courts, the
media, business leaders, education leaders, the clergy.

Trolls can lead to productive conversations. Here is a fun follow-up from our early to and fro about the insubordinate behavior of General McChrystal and his lack of respect for the Office of the President. How we began discussing Mitt Romney's empathy gap, and ended up talking about national security, the military industrial complex, and U.S. foreign policy, I am unsure. But, as you know, I roll with the punches and improvise when appropriate and necessary.

I have mentioned this essay from Harper's a few times here on WARN. I assign it in my introductory American Politics courses as a way of getting students to think about our country's cultural, social, and political institutions. Could there be a military coup in the United States? What would it take to be successful? Would the officer class go along with it? What of the average rank-and-file soldiers?

My answer has always been as follows: why does the military need to have a coup when they effectively run the show anyway? Moreover, the United States is a thoroughly militarized society from the bottom up (and has only seen the walls between the military and civilian life become thinner and thinner with the post-Cold War up-gunning of local police departments, and Patriot Act national security era).

Unlike Japan in the Tokugawa era--when the average citizen knew that the country was first and foremost a martial society--Americans are blindly ignorant of this fact. But then again, the average rank and file plebian also thinks that the United States fights wars in order to export "democracy" (as opposed to create "free markets" to exploit, and to maintain exclusive access to resources) and that Al-Qaeda attacked on 9/11 because they hate "the American way of life" and our "values."

Alternatively, a brief and cursory look at American popular culture--from video games, to blockbuster movies, to TV shows--reveals how militarism is valorized, socialized into the body politic.

Operationally, the puzzle is an interesting one. Which units would actually defect? Given how geographically dispersed and forward deployed the U.S. military is, do they actually have the line infantry and other assets to actually conduct operations in a hostile domestic environment? Never mind COIN or MOUT in a major American city.

Here is another wrinkle: most of the Army's forces are based in the South, what if a Turner Diaries style neo-Nazi white nationalist wet dream came to pass?

In all, I would rather war game a zombie outbreak.

The military is one of the United States' most "respected" political and social institutions. Given the right mix of circumstances, a failing State, an exhausted public, and creeping inverted totalitarianism I could envision the American people clamoring for a "soft coup."

To point, here is one particularly tasty passage from Harper's "American coup d'etat: Military thinkers discuss the unthinkable" that seems to echo my sentiment:

WASIK: Let's get back, though, to the subject of crises, whether real or
contrived. It seems as though the American public wants to see the
military step in during these situations. A poll taken just after
Hurricane Katrina found that 69 percent of people wanted to see the
military serve as the primary responder to natural disasters.

DUNLAP: People don't fully appreciate what the military is. By design it
is authoritarian, socialistic, undemocratic. Those qualities help the
armed forces to serve their very unique purpose in our society: namely,
external defense against foreign enemies. In the military we look to
destroy threats, not apprehend them for processing through a system that
presumes them innocent until proven guilty. And I should add that if
you do try to imprint soldiers with the restraint that a police force
needs, then you disadvantage them against the ruthless adversaries that
real war involves.

WASIK: Then why do so many Americans say they want to see the military get involved in law enforcement, “peacekeeping,” etc.?

DUNLAP: Americans today have an incredible trust in the military. In
poll after poll they have much more confidence in the armed forces than
they do in other institutions. The most recent poll, just this past
spring, had trust in the military at 74 percent, while Congress was at
22 percent and the presidency was at 44 percent. In other words, the
armed forces are much more trusted than the civilian institutions that
are supposed to control them.

What do you think folks? Could a successful military coup happen here in these good ol' United States? Or did it already happen at the end of World War Two and the public was asleep at the wheel?

Who is Chauncey DeVega?

I am the editor and founder of We Are Respectable Negroes, as well as the host of the podcast known as "The Chauncey DeVega Show".

I am also a race man in progress, Black pragmatist, ghetto nerd, cultural critic and essayist.

I have been a guest on the BBC, Ring of Fire Radio, Ed Schultz, Make it Plain, Joshua Holland's Alternet Radio Hour, the Thom Hartmann radio show, the Burt Cohen show, and Our Common Ground.

I have also been interviewed on the RT Network and Free Speech TV.

My writing has been featured by Salon, Alternet, The New York Daily News, and the Daily Kos.

My work has also been referenced by MSNBC, as well as online magazines and publications such as The Atlantic, Slate, The Week, The New Republic, Buzzfeed, The Daily Beast, The Washington Times, The Nation, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Judge me by my enemies. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Juan Williams, Herman Cain, Alex Jones, World Net Daily, Twitchy, the Free Republic, NewsBusters, the Media Research Council, Project 21, and Weasel Zippers have made it known that they do not like me very much.